Deconstruct Your Competitors Newsletter Strategy

Welcome to The Uncommon Advice, a weekly newsletter where I provide actionable insights for building a business that gives you freedom.

A Guide to Analyzing Revenue and Growth Tactics

Uncovering the secrets behind successful newsletters can be invaluable when designing your own strategy.

Here's a guide on how to analyze competitor newsletters to understand their revenue sources and subscriber growth tactics:

Utilize Newsletter Advertising Platforms

Platforms such as Passionfroot that offers detailed insights into various newsletters.

They include some of their subscriber metrics, so you can look at the newsletter's list size, open rate, click-through rate (CTR), and ad CTR.

The Audience Demographics helps you understand who's reading the newsletters.

The Advertising Details give you insight to their ad/sponsorship rates and more.

You can use this information to estimate their potential ad revenue.

Grab a newsletter on PF that you can analyze.

You can determine their ad revenue by considering the average price per ad, frequency of sends, ad inventory utilization, and number of ads per issue.

Calculate monthly ad revenue with this formula: Number of sends per month × percentage of ad inventory sold × average price per ad.

Investigate Their Advertising or Sponsorship Page

If the newsletter isn't listed on sponsorship platforms.

Search for “Advertise”, “Sponsor”, or a similar section on their website. If unavailable, reach out directly to request their media kit or ad information.

(We have a template in our workshop that we give to our clients.)

Gather data on their ad packages, placements, pricing, list size, open rate, CTR, and ad clicks.

Use the same formula above to get insights into their ad revenue.

Additional Tips for Competitor Analysis:

Sign Up for Their Newsletter: Observe their content style, frequency, and type of advertisements.

Social Media and Online Presence: Investigate how they promote their newsletter and engage with their audience.

Industry Forums and Discussions: Participate in or monitor discussions where these newsletters are mentioned for unfiltered opinions and insights.

Tools and Tech: Look into the technologies they might be using, like email marketing platforms, to understand their capabilities.

Analyzing competitors’ newsletters provides invaluable insights into successful strategies, helping you refine your approach to maximize revenue and subscriber engagement.

Remember, the goal is not to copy but to learn and adapt these insights to your unique brand and audience.

Uncommon Advice: Bonus Strategy

Similar Web is another tool that can provide valuable insights into how your competitors grow their email list.

The browser extension allows you to pick a newsletter to spy on and see the top traffic channels, top keywords, referral traffic, social media traffic, and more.

Uncovering the channels that your competitors are using to grow their newsletters gives you an edge over your competition.

By understanding the types of ads they’re running, you can set yourself apart by creating ad content that stands out from the rest.

This could be achieved through interactive elements, like polls or surveys, or even strong visuals and storytelling.

Additionally, by analyzing their keyword strategy, you can find opportunities to gain organic rankings on Google for keywords related to your business.

That way, when people search for these keywords, your business is at the top of their results list.

Rooting for ya!

~Nate Kennedy